Horned Toad
by DolbyDigital
Summary: Sometimes, the most mundane things can have the worst consequences. If she'd been on time to that potions class, maybe it wouldn't have happened. Or maybe it would. She'd never know.


She rushed into the potions classroom, out of breath and sweating, the door hit the wall with a resounding _thud_ that alerted the entire room to her presence. She was maybe fifteen minutes late; she'd overslept and no one in her dorm had bothered to wake her.

"Miss Warren," Slughorn paused in his lesson introduction to address her. "You're late. Stay behind after class, I'd like a word with you." He gestured to the only remaining seat in the room, before he continued on with the lesson, ignoring her entirely.

She scowled as she realised who she would be working with - _Olive Hornby._ With stiff, overly emphasized movements, she stalked over to the table and sat heavily on the stool.

"Alright," Slughorn proclaimed loudly. "You'll be working in pairs. The person you're sitting next to will do." Myrtle threw a glare at Olive. "You may begin."

"I hope you were paying attention, four-eyes," Olive hissed. Myrtle felt her face heating up, her eyes stinging, but she held back the retort. "Well? What are you waiting for?" the girl snapped. "Go get the ingredients." Her glaring intensified when she noticed the blank expression on Myrtle's face. "They're on the board."

Myrtle squinted as she read through the list.

" _Horned toad!_ " she squawked.

"They're dead, you idiot!" Olive snarled. "And stop squinting like that. You look constipated." Olive turned her attention away, leaving Myrtle fuming; she was already in enough trouble for being late, though, so she went to get the ingredients as instructed.

There were a lot of students gathered around the supply closet and so, of course, Myrtle was the last to get ingredients.

She dropped the ingredients onto their shared table, frowning slightly at the wilted leaves and cracked horn and-

"What's that?" Olive shrieked, pointing at the horned toad.

"It's a horned toad. It's on the list," she replied defensively.

"So, what? You expect us to disembowel it ourselves?" Olive asked incredulously.

"It was the only thing left," Myrtle whined, looking at the toad with disgust.

"Well get to it, then." Olive handed her a knife.

"Why do I have to do it? That's horrible!"

"It's dead, it's not going to hurt you. And I'm doing this," Olive replied as she began crushing the horn.

"Why can't I do that?"

"You've already touched the toad," Olive answered as if it should be obvious. "And it's your fault we're stuck with it, anyway."

Myrtle picked up the toad, careful to touch as little of it as possible. It was strangely warm, and there was some sort of liquid leaking from it that was making her fingers tingle.

"Put on some gloves, you freak!" Olive shrieked, loud enough that half the class stopped what they were doing to stare. "You don't know what they've kept that in!"

"Is everything alright over there?" Slughorn questioned.

"Yes, professor," they both answered immediately, strained smiles in place.

"Good, good," Slughorn replied distractedly, already moving onto the next table.

Donning her gloves, Myrtle sliced open the toad and pulled out it's intestines, gagging as she did so. She dropped her handful of internal organs straight into the cauldron, not wanting to hold it a second longer than she had to.

"What are you doing, you idiot! Can't you read!" Olive stopped what she was doing to yell.

"What?"

"It very clearly states _not_ to put the toad in until right at the _end_!"

"No it- Oh," Myrtle felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes again. "Does it make that much difference?" But even as she spoke, the potion turned an alarming shade of puce and started bubbling fiercely.

"Honestly, I don't know why you even bothers with those glasses. For one thing, everyone knows they're hideous, but if you can't even _read_ -" Myrtle let loose an almost inhuman shriek and shoved past her, storming from the room despite the fact that class was far from being over.

She ran through the corridors, ugly tears running down her cheeks and snot dripping onto her lip, until she somehow found herself in the first floor girls' bathroom.

* * *

 _"Are you in here again, sulking Myrtle? Because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you-"_


End file.
